Glee! 1.11 Hairography

A diversity cover band for Poison? Also, Mark Salling's face is hilarious.

Hoo boy, did this episode swing wildly through musical genres. Since McKinley’s big number includes a number from “Hair,” today’s drink is The Dirty Hippie.

Also, hemp bread is gross. Our free space will be to drink every time there is a blatant distraction thrown at us.

Sue Sylvester marches into the teacher’s lounge with the latest copy of Splits magazine under her arm. (If you go online to subscribe, make sure you get the US athletic version. There’s a similar magazine from Thailand with very different results. You might make an FBI watch list.) She demands Will give her the set list for WhenWillItEverBeHereunals and Will is immediately suspicious.

In Glee as the kids start rehearsing, Will notices Brittany standing off to the side, recording their dance moves (stalk the piano, left march, right march, circle partner, left march… there’s not a lot of variety is what I’m getting at) and she immediately tells them, “Coach Sylvester did not tell me to do this.” [DRINK!]

Will gets a brain wave. Sue is going to leak his set-list and dance moves to the competition! He rushes to Emma to talk about things, because that’s his only teacher friend. Or friend-friend. Emma says he should just call the schools up and ask them point blank. That way he’ll know one way or the other.

Will heads off to Jane Addams Reform School For Girls, is searched for weapons, and interrupts the glee coach, special guest star Eve. She’s berating a student for robbing a bank, and wondering why she even did it? “Because, Ms. Hitchens, that’s where they keep the money.” Duh, Teach.

Will asks Ms. Hitchens if she’s been given his set list and she’s offended. Why, because it’s a school for arsonists and thieves? And then she tells bank robber Aphasia to hand back Mr. Schuester’s wallet. Jane Addams isn’t exactly rolling in arts money, and they don’t have anywhere to practice. They have to practice out in the yard, and it’s Ohio. They have weather.

Mr. Schuester, chagrined, offers them a type of “scrimmage” at McKinley – they’ll sit and watch the Jane Addams girls perform one of their numbers. (And this is not leaking a set list/performance spying how exactly? DRINK for the sneaky factor on Will’s part.)

The girls show up and knock out “Bootylicious” by Destiny’s Child and McKinley definitely wasn’t ready for that jelly because the ladies are busting some serious stripper moves. I mean at one point, a group of girls go down on their hands, other girls grab their feet, and they make their asses clap like hands. LADIES. Wow. Oh, but more importantly they all have long, luscious locks that they whip back and forth, they whip their hair back and forth.

Our Gleeks are freaked. Not Rachel, though, she’s a pro and knows just what happened. She tells Mr. Schuester not to be dazzled by their hairography. That just accentuates that they don’t have much to show in the talent portion of the competition. (Uh, Taint McHole’s Honey Bin – a gentleman’s club – would like to differ. They’d enjoy having some of those girls on center stage Saturday nights, if you pick up what I’m putting down.) Hair flinging is a total distraction from their ho-hum performance. [DRINK!]

Will completely ignores Rachel and tells the kids they have a new number for Sexunals, the very obvious choice of “Hair!” from the musical Hair. About hair. And drugs and being dirty hippies that have public sex and fight The Man. Oh, not to worry, gang, he brought a gym bag of wigs for everyone, and Kurt looks lovely in a long layered blond ‘do. Rachel is not happy about any of this. She would have much preferred “Let The Sun Shine” or “Frank Mills,” is my guess.

Puck gives a stolen copy of “How To Raise A Baby On $5 A Day” to Quinn as further proof of the awesome dad he’s going to make, if she’ll just give him a chance. She’s been freaking out a little because now she’s not sure if she wants to give the baby away or keep it. She does know that she needs to make a decision about Finn because the longer this goes on, the less sure she is about letting him be the father. She thinks to herself that she’ll give Puck a test drive behind Finn’s back and see if she should decide to be with Puck after all.

I would like to remind everyone that Quinn is living at Finn’s house by the good graces of his mother, and she’s trying to figure out the best way to cheat on him. Classy. To get Finn out of the way, she’ll fling Rachel at him as a distraction, [DRINK!] and get Kurt to make her over into something a little more attractive.

Kurt comments on how he kind of likes how awful she dresses. “She somehow manages to dress like a grandmother and a toddler at the same time.” Cut to a shot of her in an electric blue pant suit of the finest double-knit polyester available. “Hmm, I see your point.” He agrees to the makeover. (And I think this is the very first time Rachel has EVER worn pants to school. Jeans for a performance, yes, but she’s a Catholic school girl skirt -n- toddler holiday sweater kind of girl.)

Shrewi and Will are going ‘nite ‘nite with a pillow between their bodies. My god, this has to be the worst nine months of pregnancy any man will ever suffer through. He reaches across the pillow to stroke her hair and she flips out like he just jammed two in the pink and one in the stink. He sighs and asks her if it’ll all be worth it when baby Wilhelmina is born. Um, yes. Yes! Of course. Crap, gotta find a way to distract Will from my pillow baby.

Kurt heads over to Rachel’s wearing a horrid print (too huge, too spazzy) shirt and a white bolo tie [DRINK, holy shit, when do his clothes get fabulous!?] and waxes Rachel’s eyebrows. Ladies, he is completely right: wax from the underneath; only tweeze stray hairs above the eyebrow line. (You do not pluck your eyebrows, you pluck a chicken. We tweeze our brows.)

He comments on how her bedroom looks like where Strawberry Shortcake and Holly Hobby hook up for gay sex and this is a clear indication of how old the writers are. I will neither confirm nor deny that I had a Holly Hobby doll and playhouse. Kurt wants this makeover to distract boys from her questionable personality [Ha, and DRINK!] and by the time he’s done, all the boys will do a double take.

Rachel confesses to him that she’s only interested in one boy, one Finn Hudson. Kurt grinds his teeth for a minute and then tells her that Finn is totally into whores. Slutty slutty trash bombs. But… Quinn is so wholesome! Well, duh. That’s why he’s so into it, you see. And how did the virginal and pure Sandy win over her Danny? She poured herself into a pleather cat suit (with the help of some oil and baby powder, I’m sure) and that’s what got her her man.

Terri leads a blindfolded Will to the garage and reveals an old car she bought for him to rebuild. Aw, that’s nice. It’s the same car he had back in high school that they used to bone in. [DRINK!] She keeps him looking at the awesome bondo paint job that he can repair as her sister Kendra sneaks Quinn past them. [Double Distraction: DRINK TWICE!] Terri and Kendra then talk with Quinn, now that Will is safely away. Quinn has decided. She’s keeping her baby. Bum bum buuuum!

The choir director for Haverbrook School for the Deaf shows up and reams Will out for not letting his kids come play in their auditorium, too, since he’s all with the “Hey, who wants to come perform?” It’s not like his school is rolling in Deaf Choir money, after all. Will, the pushing-est pushover that ever was shoved, immediately tells him to come on and bring their kids to the music room, they can have a scrimmage as well.

Meanwhile, Terri is freaking out and wants to just come clean with Will but Kendra insists that she can get Quinn to change her mind. They’ll get Quinn to watch Kendra’s three soulless gingers for a night, and that will swear her off children for life. Kendra doesn’t even like kids anymore, and she has some.

Rachel shows up for school in a tiny black mini, a black bustier, and big ol’ heels. Finn catches sight of her and stops in his tracks. She does the innocent but I’m really sexy big eyes, “How about we rehearse this Friday, hmm?” voice and he stammers that it would be awesome, but he needs to check first. Kurt in the background gives her a thumbs up. Finn tells Quinn that he needs to do something Friday, she’s super okay with it, and then she asks Puck to come over and help her babysit on Friday. Wink.

It’s time for the Gleeks to learn hairography. Brittany will lead this class. “It works best when you pretend like you’re being tazered.” [DRINK!] She shakes it like her mama made it, and they all applaud her. “Guys, it’s like cool epilepsy.” [DRINK!] Sue is busted by Will for peeking in, and he chases her off. She stands her ground on how she does not approve of this hair business. Her Cheerios slick their hair back from their faces so nothing distracts from their flawless performance.

And she’s totally right. Also, DRINK. Sue is back on as co-director, she has no faith in Will.

In Rachel’s boudoir, she applies lip gloss while Finn sits nervously on her bed. She has a song idea for them, and she steps out of her bathroom wearing the Sandy cat suit and says, “Tell me about it, Stud.” Surprisingly Finn doesn’t crack up laughing. He does stop her because he’s really uncomfortable. “You look like a sad clown hooker.” WOW, dude, I mean, yeah, but you don’t say that out loud!

She’s super embarrassed (oh, ya think?) and says that she thought he was into that sort of thing. He flashes back to a similar conversation with Kurt about this, and how he likes simple girls with natural makeup and loose hair. KURT! The double crosser! Rachel thinks. Finn realizes he shouldn’t be there because he kinda likes her, but he’s with Quinn. So he leaves.

Speaking of his girlfriend, she and Puck are currently tied up by the horrorshow children (Puck texts like a maniac through all of this.) While they try to untie themselves they have a wonky “oh, look, our hands touched, lets clasp them together!” manufactured moment, but the chemistry between them is fairly obvious. They bust loose and since Puck brought his guitar, they sing to the kids. And somehow, the kids like it, even though Quinn doesn’t have the moxie to pull off “Papa Don’t Preach,” and let me take a second here to say that if I could pull off short platinum blond hair, I would dress like Madonna in that video (oh, that glorious striped shirt and red accessories!) every day of my life.

Off topic, sorry. Quinn does that beauty pageant hand-thing where she flexes her hands out and her arms are stiff to her side. She does it every time she performs. It makes me crazy. But whatever, she’s pretty and the gingers fall under her spell. Kendra and Terri show up and not only are the kids all asleep but there’s a weird smell. It’s soap. “You got them to bathe?!” Quinn is evidently a miracle worker. Or an exorcist.

Sorry ladies, your plan backfired. Quinn thinks that she and Puck could totally do this. She’s about to make it official.

Rachel confronts Kurt in school on Monday. “You set me up!” He tries to maintain dignity while telling her that she’s all wrong for Finn. Um, buddy? He’s straight. And Rachel continues, “Even if I’m fifth on his list, I’m still more likely than you because I’m a girl.” Way to hit below the belt. Even though Kurt really needs that truth bomb. But he knows this, and he tells Rachel that they’re both kidding themselves. Finn loves Quinn, and they just serve as distractions. [DRINK.]

Santana confronts Quinn at her locker about staying away from Puck. Quinn plays it off like she doesn’t know what she’s talking about, but Santana rubs in the fact that while they were playing house, she and Puck were playing mistress. He wasn’t texting Mike, he was sexting her. And her sexts are too hot to be deleted, so check it out for yourself, Blondie.

But first, Glee performs for the School for the Deaf, and they fling themselves like crazy people in a HORRIBLE mash-up of “Hair” and “Crazy in Love” by Beyonce, and it’s just awful. The songs don’t work together in the first place, and yes, I get that it’s supposed to be ridiculous to underscore how horrible that idea was. But it’s still painful to sit through. Even the deaf kids try and claw their ears and they can’t even hear it. But the deaf kids are polite and sign applause (hand wave) the performance, even though it was a hot mess.

Then they perform. And they have someone that can sound out words who speaks the lyrics to “Imagine” while the other kids sign along, and it’s really awesome. And then the Glee kids TOTALLY RUIN THE MOMENT by deciding that they need to get up there with them and sing (missing the point ENTIRELY) but they try to sign along as they sing and the deaf kids are polite and don’t punch them all in the face.

I mean, come on. Give these kids their moment. Not to mention that it’s a really touching idea, these kids and this song. And Will is moved beyond words (and I would have been, too, if the Gleeks had stayed in their seats and learned to LISTEN) and he signs applause to them, and that is a pretty great little emotional moment.

Nice moment over, Quinn grabs Puck’s phone and checks it. Yep, he was totally sending nasty messages to Santana while they were babysitting. Look, Puck is very clear about who he is, and that’s a horny jackass. But he’ll totally take care of their baby, what’s the problem? The problem, Puckerman, is that’s not okay with Quinn. That’s it, she’s giving the baby away because it deserves a better father than this.

She tells Terri, Will walks in, and Quinn gives him a tight hug because she knows that Will is going to be a great father that will adore his child. She leaves and Will takes Terri to the garage to show her that he traded in the old sports car for a mini-van. It’s better for their growing family, and he doesn’t want any distractions from that [DRINK.] Terri, you are screwing the pooch here, and boy, don’t she know it.

Quinn finds Finn, wants them to just be in love again (because it’s that easy, Cheater Vonscrewy, just demand that love happens.) He wants to be honest, though, and he tells her that he was at Rachel’s house on Friday, but nothing happened because he loves Quinn. Rachel and Kurt both see the two in the hallway and share a pained smile.

Will tracks down Sue and apologizes. She was totally right about the hairography, no more gimmicks. He gives her their new set list; they have a new song for the end, where they’ll simply sit on stools and sing. Rachel approves of this plan as well.

Sue immediately gives the two schools’ glee coaches the set lists. Eve is all, “Who do you think I am?” And Sue responds, “I have no idea, I’ve completely forgotten your name. Anyway, here’s their numbers, you two should perform some of them, New Directions will go last and look like they stole from you! Isn’t that wonderful? And folks, never let anything distract you from winning.” [DRINK!]

The kids close it out with Tina leading them in a nice A Capella version of “True Colors” and I’m sorry, but I’m so burned out on that song that I can only mildly smile, even though they do a competent job. That song works with the timbre of Tina’s voice, so that was smart to have her lead it. There are camera cuts between all of the lovers looking at each other, Puck to Quinn, to Finn, to Rachel and Kurt. The look Finn gives after Kurt smiles and winks at him while singing is hilarious. He is just constantly flummoxed, and I love it.

But the irony here is that none of them see the others’ true colors. See what they did there? Hurr. Drink. (Why not?)

Drunken Thoughts: I’m still hung up on them interrupting the deaf kids. I’m sure there’s someone out there that thinks it represents them all coming together, them all celebrating music together, but you know why you don’t get up on stage in an opera and start singing along the performers? Because it’s their performance. Bah. I’m crotchety.

But all of those shenanigans I can deal with because the pictures of Kurt in his blond wig are hilarious. Not to mention Brittany getting more of a presence in each episode, and she’s one of the funniest characters ever written, in my humble opinion. We haven’t even gotten to the dolphins are gay sharks stuff. Love. I’m just saying, I want to be a guest on Fondue for Two with Lord Tubbington.

Also, makeovers are like crack to me, as well. I wanna play dress up with Kurt and fix this season’s wrongness. (Oh my god, poor Chris Colfer. You know he hated wearing that stuff.)

The getting up and singing with the deaf choir bothered the aich ee double hockey sticks out of me, too. Y’all didn’t get on stage and hooch it up with the girls’ school, did you? I get what (I believe) the point to be, being all warm and fuzzy -like, but it came off as oh, poor deaf kids, here, let us sing it while you make funny things happen with your hand-parts.

Brittany and Lord T. FTW. She is my favourite character, hands-down. She might be a ditz, but she is lovely and sincere and frank (not to mention, that girl has moves).

Yeah, I think they thought it would come off all “we’re all singing together!” but it just didn’t pay off like that AT ALL.

I would watch a spin off of Brittany and her cat and dancing. A two hour show every week. How awesome would that be on a scale of one to hell yes?

Shosh

Oh HELL to the yes. I would watch that show multiple times on a daily basis.

Comedy Quiche

Hahaha, see, I LIKED the Crazy in Love/Hair combo, but that’s just me. The dance number they do to it cracks me up. I dunno whay Shue was thinking. “Hmm, for the parts when the girls BEND OVER WHILE THE GUYS FAKE BANG THEM FROM BEHIND AND MAKE ‘Rock Out’ HAND SIGNS, let’s pair the Asians together, Aretha and Shaft together, and instead of the pregnant chick with her boyfriend, we’ll give her to the gay kid. Oh, that will be the pairing for when the GIRLS HOP UP, WRAP THEIR LEGS AROUND THE GUY’S WAISTS AND BOUNCE, TOO.”

I am sure that Ryan Murphy and CO. will be happy to know someone liked that performance/mash-up, then! Hahaha. Oh, I TOTALLY agree, though, that having Kurt fake bang Quinn was hilarious. The dance numbers…. sometimes I think they all forget this is for HIGH SCHOOL. In OHIO. A small town Ohio, at that! Hilarious.

A quarter past 1 in the morning and I just woke my roommate cause I was laughing so hard at this.

That entire Hair music thing just irritated the hell out of me. Wigs and cracked up music and all of it!

And I was completely moved by the kids from the school for the deaf singing Imagine, and I agree with you that it was very inappropriate of the Glee kids to jump up there with them.

Sue continues to be a delight and Quinn continues to be working her way to being a very hated person (do you think she just hates herself, and that’s why she acts like this?). And for some reason, I totally loved that Kurt not only gave Rachel a makeover, but he gave her a dirtybadwrong makeover!

I think the Hair/wigs/redonk bugged me because it was so obviously a joke. They can be so clever on one hand, and then to do something so purposefully stupid seems like lazy writing to me. Obvious jokes are never funny, folks!

Oh, I totally think Quinn (and girls like her) hate themselves and act that way so they have something else to hate. (And I think Kurt needs to makeover Tina next, then himself. I know it’s coming, fashionable Kurt, but I’m itchy for it!)

Have you watched ahead and are re-watching now, or are you recapping as you do a first time watch? Cause there’s fashion stuff in season 2 that scarred me.

Personally, I think Quinn just needs to forget about the boys and concentrate on the baby she’s having, whether she plans to keep it or not. Whilst you are pregnant would not be the time to man-shop, I would think.

And I am sooooo ready for the more mature, in-your-face Kurt….one of my very favorite Kurt scenes out of the entirety of season 1 is coming up in episode 18….though the fashion from that one episode makes him look like a runway model during the rest of the season….and I think that was really when he kinda began to “grow up”.

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